LONDON: A new research revealed that the pollution from Europe has caused a drought in India, causing one of its worst-ever natural disasters, affecting over 130 million people. Sulphur Dioxide, mainly produced by coal-fired power plants, producing a number of harmful effects, like acid rain, heart and lung diseases, and damage to plant growth.
While sulphur aerosols have a cooling effect on the atmosphere as they reflect sunlight back into space, emissions from the northern hemisphere can change the relative rate of warming in the south, causing the tropical in-band to shift, prompting devastating results. Calculating the level of effects caused by emissions of sulphur dioxide on rainfall in India, in 2000, researchers at Imperial College London produced the results by suing a climate model.
The north-west of India experienced a staggering drop of about 40 per cent because of emissions from the northern hemisphere's main industrial areas. Emissions from Europe alone caused reductions of up to 10 per cent in the north-west and south-west regions. Apostolos Voulgarakis, one of the researchers of ICL's Grantham Institute, said the study showed how emissions in one part of the world could have a significant effect on another, even if the pollution itself didn't actually get there.
“East Asia is contributing more because it's closer, but there is an effect from Europe and also the US,” he said. A brief note prepared by the group about the techniques to assess air pollutants said they could have “complex and diverse” effects.
